Stoke City chairman Peter Coates insists Ryan Shawcross would not have deliberately set out to injure Arsenal youngster Aaron Ramsey.

Coates is confident the former Manchester United trainee will soon be back to normal.

"I know absolutely that there was no malicious intent on behalf of the player," he told Sky Sports News.

"We are very upset for the player who has been injured, who is a very fine prospect and it's a setback for him, and for Ryan because we know he would never seek to damage anybody.

"We have made our position perfectly clear to all of football and the public in general and we don't really want to say anymore.

"He has played for us 100 times, he has never been sent off, he's a fine young man, he's a credit to his family and he's a credit to this football club and the game in general."

Coates added: "He's upset. The last thing he wants is to injure a fellow professional. He's upset about it and we can understand that.

"It was, to say the least, unfortunate but we have to get on with it. These things happen in football, it will happen again at some time - it's inevitable in the kind of game we play in."